


Tell Me A Story

by rosymamacita



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Season/Series 05, madi's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 06:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosymamacita/pseuds/rosymamacita
Summary: Madi is still getting to know Bellamy Blake, now that he's back on earth, but she already likes him and she wants him to like her, too, so she's on her best behavior. But she really wants him to tell her some new stories.... they're just not like she imagined they would be. They're better.





	Tell Me A Story

“Tell me a story,” Madi said.

“Do you like stories?” 

She liked the way Bellamy smiled, the way his teeth were so white in his beard and his eyes crinkled at edges. It made her long for something she almost remembered, from back in the before.

She looked up at him in the dark, hungry. She fed on stories, he didn’t know. They were more important than food. Stories were all she had. In the dark times, she used to tell herself stories, about evil monsters and brave warriors, girls who could fight the sky and the death and the emptiness. 

And when death came for her, she fought death, with nothing but a knife and a word.

But she had been wrong. Death had not come or her. Death had become her friend, death was Clarke. And Death brought a new life, and everything had started over again. Clarke told her new stories, about new warriors, and taught her to fight the monsters, although the monsters were nothing now, nothing but loneliness and sadness and hunger, and Death made them better, made them less. Death helped them survive.

But she wasn’t going to tell him any of that. No. Not while he had stories to tell that she didn’t know, and new warriors to defeat new monsters. So instead, all she said, was, “yes,” and he began.

He poured her a mug of hot tea, a new blend that she had not known before the spacekru came home, and he pulled the blankets up around her, and he said, “well okay then,” and he began.

But there were no warriors.

And the monsters were friends.

There was a boat and an adventure and a child like her, named Max, who went off into the woods alone and became king of the monsters. Not by fighting them, but by dancing with them wild and free, by giving them stories, by sitting with them by the fire and telling them about the wide world he had seen, the beauty and the love he had met.

And when he child in the story got on that boat and sailed back home, Madi stopped him.

“Wait. Wait. I don’t understand.”

Bellamy smiled and cocked his head. “What don’t you understand?”

“Why didn’t Max fight the monsters? Why didn’t he kill them to protect himself, to be free?”

Bellamy’s smile fell a little. “Why would they need to kill the monsters to be free?”

“Because that’s what you do with monsters. They want to kill you and enslave you, so you have to do it first.”

Bellamy sighed. “I used to think that too. That you had to fight in order to survive. But I think this is a different kind of story.”

“There are different kinds of stories?”

He nodded. “Or maybe there’s a different enemy.”

Madi let her face scrunch up in confusion again. “But there was no enemy. No killing. No fight at all.”

He nodded this time, and shifted in his seat. “I think the enemy wasn’t the monsters. I think the enemy was inside him. I think…” Bellamy’s words faded away and Madi had to wonder, had to think, what was he afraid to say to her. Then she realized.

“He was the monster.”

Bellamy cocked an eyebrow and half nodded at her. “Yeah. I think maybe that’s right.”

Madi let cold chills run down her spine like a waterfall. “But he didn’t kill it. He didn’t fight it. It’s still there inside of him. What does it mean? How could he just dance and play and make friends with the monsters and… then leave?”

“That’s a good question,” he said and stared into the fire. 

He didn’t speak for so long that Madi thought he wasn’t going to answer. She finished off her tea he took the mug from her while she got settled in her bedroll.

He sat next to her for a while. And she was starting to fall asleep when he spoke again. “I think when you realize the monster is inside of you, and killing it would kill you, too, that the only thing you can do is make friends with it. To understand it as strong and broken and powerful, and maybe… maybe your monster can help you be something better, fight for living, or happiness, not to kill. Maybe it can be the thing that helps you create instead of destroy.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, almost against her will. The words tumbled out of her mouth sleepily. She didn’t mean to. She was sill trying to make a good impression on him, she didn’t want him to think she was stupid. 

Instead he just laughed. “Yeah, I know. It’s pretty hard to make sense of. It took me a few years. Don’t worry about it. Max learned to make friends with the monsters and it made him better and stronger and happier.”

“And he went home.”

“He went home.”

She sighed and cuddled into her pillow. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Me too. Go to sleep now, you can’t keep your eyes open.”

“‘Night Bellamy.”

“Night.” He bent over and kissed Madi’s forehead and it made her want to cry with happiness, but she just closed her eyes and pretended she was already asleep.

That was why she heard when Clarke came up to him. “Is that true?” she asked. Clarke was using her whisper voice and that was the voice that she used when she was tracking prey or something, so Madi knew she didn’t want Madi to hear. She laid still. She listened. She had to track something down, too. 

“Is what true?”

“Befriending your monster? You learned how to do that?” her soft voice broke just a little.

Bellamy’s laugh was gentle. Loving. It made Madi’s heart hurt to hear it, in a good way. He loved Clarke. Madi knew. “I learned it from you Clarke. You’re the one who taught me to befriend my monster. Because you became my friend. You…” he paused and Madi thought he wasn’t going to say it. “You loved me, even though I was the monster, and I became a better man.”

Madi heard a ragged indrawn breath. That was Clarke. She was crying. Clarke never cried in front of Madi. She didn’t know what to do, so she didn’t do anything. She chanced peeking through slit eyelids to see what was happening. 

She didn’t need to have worried. They weren’t paying attention to her at all. They were standing on the other side of the fire, and Bellamy had Clarke wrapped in his arms. She had buried her face in his chest and he was patting her back, whispering something Madi couldn’t hear to her. Her body shook in his arms and he just held her tighter. She saw him kiss her hair, and Clarke’s hands came up around him to hold on tight.

He didn’t stop the hug. He didn’t back away. They held onto each other. Clung. And the longer they did, the more Madi believed that, despite everything, it would all turn out right.

Because this was the way it was supposed to be.


End file.
